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Tuesday, August 14, 2018

Last spring a pod of orca whales had a great time in Wellington. Like the southern right whale that visited a couple of months ago, they enjoy the crowd attention. Or so it seems.

Coincidentally, we were travelling up the western coast by train, and the orcas were travelling up the coast, too. It was fun to watch the lines of stopped cars, as people hopped out to take pictures and generally enjoy the flipping and diving. Then we left the train at Paekakariki and walked south along the coastal track, watching orcas all the time.

And now they are back. They must like the harbor. Or so (again) it seems. However, unlike the southern right whale, they have not come to play. Instead, they are following stingrays, which definitely like our harbor. Displaying remarkable intelligence, the orcas dig in the muddy bottom to disturb the rays, then herd them into the shallows, where they can feed at leisure. Accordingly, that flipping and diving is part of the hunt. Success is hailed by an abrupt threshing in the water, as the ray tries to fly off. Indeed, they have been known to "jump" onto piers and rocks in their desperation to get away. Unfortunately (though luckily for the orcas), helpful passersby can be relied on to "help" the stingray back into the water.

Most people think that orcas are whales -- their common name is "killer whale." But they are in fact dolphins, the largest of the family.

Saturday, August 11, 2018

Not to be confused with the Titanic ... but with a similarly sad fate.

The Dominion Post published this great story this morning -- a story that brought back memories, as I once had the pleasure of meeting Captain Holm's granddaughter, and listening to the wonderful stories of her childhood that she shared with me. This story, however, was new, and this is how the newspaper relates it:

Anne Erwin grew up hearing the adventurous tales of her seagoing father and grandfather. One of the most memorable was the story of the day theTitania sank, unexpectedly becoming New Zealand's first World War I maritime casualty. As told to Ruby Macandrew.

The day the Titania left Fiji bound for New Caledonia in July 1914 there was no thought that World War I was imminent, but less than a month later the crew would find themselves in peril, watching as their beloved ship sank.

The 1107-tonne ship, a four-masted barquentine, was owned and captained by Captain Ferdinand Holm, who, in 40 years of sailing, had never had a serious accident. All that changed on August 23.

SUPPLIED

Mariner Holm, the son of Captain Ferdinand Holm, served as third mate on the ill-fated ship Titania.

At the time, the ship, like many vessels of its kind, were not equipped with radios and Surprise Island had no regular mail, radio or cable connection with any other country.

SUPPLIED

Mariner and ship owner Pehr Ferdinand Holm (1844-1917), commanded the grand ship on its final journey.

As Titania approached the dangerous reef off Amadee Island Holm asked the third mate, his 20-year-old son Mariner Holm, to go aloft and search for a light.

One was sighted and assumed to be from the lighthouse. But, unbeknownst to the crew, French authorities had already extinguished the lighthouse at New Caledonia.

The light they saw turned out to be a masthead light from HMAS Australia.

STUFF

Anne Erwin, in 2004, with the bell her father saved from the Titania when it sank. The bell is now used at the Wellington Central Fire Station. (file photo)

Unsure about the light, Captain Holm gave orders "to stand out till daylight", but it was too late as a swell violently caught theTitania,sending it on to the reef just after midnight.

The force was so great that no-one could stand and everyone on board was forced to take refuge in the bow.

The bottom of the ship was ripped out. The crew sent rockets up all night but to no avail. By daylight it was clear only two lifeboats could be launched – the others were damaged beyond repair.

The crew left in the larger boat, leaving Captain Holm, his son and friend Harry Howden to check the damage, before the ship went down by the bow and broke in pieces.

Ferdinand Holm and Mariner Holm arrived in Noumea harbour in a small boat towed by a steamer.

"The battering the Titania took that night was the worst I saw in all my years of sailing," the younger Holm wrote.

"The fact that no lives were lost was nothing short of a miracle."

Mariner Holm and Howden later returned to the ship to save its cat, three pigs and the ship's bell.

The bell was brought back to Wellington, where it remains in use at the Wellington Central City Fire Station.

The Titania was not the only ship wrecked on the reef that night. By daylight the crew saw, not just the lighthouse nearby, but three other wrecks piled up alongside.

An inquiry was held and Captain Holm, along with the masters of the other ships, was exonerated.

"The real cause of the wreck was the mistake in regard to the light. The officers could not know that the Amedee light was out."

The French were ordered to pay compensation but as Germany refused to pay their indemnity to France, they, in turn, refused to pay up.

The Titania's sister ship made £70,000 carrying freights during the year of the sinking. Holm received no compensation.

The 70-year-old Holm suffered a stroke while in New Caledonia and died two-and-a-half years later.

Tuesday, August 7, 2018

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said Monday that Indonesia has handed over a luxury yacht allegedly bought with money stolen from the multibillion-dollar looting of a state investment fund. In aFacebookvideo, Mahathir thanked Indonesia's government and President Joko Widodo for returning the $250 million yacht, Equanimity, which was seized by Indonesia offBali in February in cooperation with the U.S. FBI. "We believe that this yacht belongs to the Malaysian government because it was bought with Malaysia's money that was stolen," Mahathir said, citing an investigation by the U.S. Justice Department.

Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said the yacht has set sail from the Indonesian island of Batam near Singapore and is expected to arrive in Malaysia's Port Klang on Tuesday. "At the end of the day, the yacht must be sold off" so that Malaysia can recover as much money as possible from it, Lim said.

The Justice Department, one of several foreign agencies investigating the alleged looting of the 1MDB fund by associates of former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, had listed the yacht among the assets it could seize and sell to recover stolen funds. Najib set up 1MDB when he took power in 2009 but it accumulated billions in debts. The 1MDB scandal led to his shocking electoral defeat in May and Najib is now facing charges.

Malaysian and international authorities want to question Malaysian financier Jho Low, who the Justice Department alleges was a key figure in the theft and international laundering of $4.5 billion from 1MDB. U.S. investigators said Low bought the yacht with proceeds diverted from 1MDB. Low, who has so far evaded investigators, issued a statement through his U.S. attorney on Monday protesting the handover of the yacht as an "illegal act" for ignoring court proceedings in the United States. The yacht's registered owner, Equanimity Cayman Ltd., had filed a claim on the vessel and filed further proceedings following the handover to Malaysia, the statement said, without giving further details. Mahathir said anyone who wants to claim ownership of the yacht must show proof that the vessel was not bought with stolen funds. "We want to know where they obtained so much money to buy such an expensive yacht," he said.

The Equanimity's lavish amenities include a helicopter landing pad, plunge pool, gymnasium and a cinema. It was built in 2014 by the Dutch yacht manufacturer Oceano, which received detailed instructions from Low about its outfitting, according to the Justice Department's asset recovery case.

Monday, August 6, 2018

A group of Nelson singers is "buzzing" after serenading Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her baby Neve at Wellington Airport.

The Nayland College choir was en route to an inter-school singing competition in Melbourne on Saturday. Principal Daniel Wilson, who is travelling with the group, said as they waited between flights, they spotted a group of reporters.

When the students discovered Ardern was about to touch down with her six-week-old baby and partner Clarke Gayford, the students saw a chance to help welcome baby Neve to her new Wellington home.

The students checked with the press secretary and was told the PM, returning to Wellington to start work after her six-week maternity leave, "would love it," Wilson said.

When the song finished, Ardern thanked the choir. "She said it was beautiful, and that they helped put the baby to sleep."

The students were "absolutely buzzing" after the impromptu performance, he said. "They're amazing, they saw an opportunity to do something really special. I think they got as much out of it as she did."

The principal said he was proud of the students. "They're a fantastic bunch, and really talented. What a wonderful way to start our tour."

Hit the link and the video should start, so that you can hear the song...

Thursday, August 2, 2018

Well, I am back from my stint as a cruise lecturer on the wonderful mid-size luxury ship Paul Gauguin. And, as expected, it was all perfect. The crew remembered us and greeted us with joy and affection, and the ship was as sparkling clean as ever. A bonus was the crowd of passengers who shared the voyage with us, and who attended my lectures with interest and attention. They all loved hearing about Tupaia, Captain Cook, the Mutiny on the Bounty, Shipwrecks and Castaways, and the discovery of Tahiti by the first Europeans ... particularly the bit where Captain Wallis had to take his departure in a hurry, before his ship fell apart, having lost so many nails to give to the girls.

The passenger list included a fifty-strong group from the Dana West Yacht Club, who all seemed to know each other for twenty or more years, were cheerful and friendly, and had a blast of a time. Each year, it seems, the current commodore gets to choose the destination for a club holiday, and the man at the helm this year, George Bloomfield, had the wit and wisdom to choose the Paul Gauguin.

Who knows where they will head next year? That's up to the next commodore. Meantime, I hope to publish George's account of the group's experience on this lovely ship, from the club's newsletter, "Lines & Bits."

There was also a big group from the friends of the San Francisco Opera. And so the ship had a couple of opera singers on board, along with a magician (the rising star Nicolas del Pozo), ocean expert Denis Schneider, and (briefly) archaeologist Mark Eddowes.

Add wonderful food, superb wines (including whites from New Zealand), and luxurious surroundings, and I know that everyone had a great holiday.

Wednesday, August 1, 2018

Mystery around wreck find off Wellington coast

TOM HUNT

A mystery shipwreck has been discovered "beyond the point of safe return" off Wellington's South Coast.

Rob Wilson, of Ghost Fishing, and two others were diving off Owhiro Bay on Sunday when they discovered the wreck – a long distance from known wrecks in the area – and in an area few ever dove due to a treacherous rip and the long swim.

He is not making any firm predictions about what it is but suspects it may be the wreck of a fishing boat, Crescent, which sank in the 1930s.

While less likely, it could also be previously undiscovered parts of the area's known wrecks, he said.

"It's a very exciting find - we are not 100 per cent what wreck it is yet - but I took a lot of images of the hull ribs which are on the sea floor.

"We have dived this coast extensively for many years but have never seen this wreck."

ROB WILSON/GHOST FISHING

The new wreckage found off Owhiro Bay, Wellington.

Maritime archaeologist Andy Dodd, who surveyed the coast, believed the find was more likely from a boat, Progress, already known about in the area.

"Wreckage can be strewn across reasonably large areas, and the remains that I have seen from the Progress are not dissimilar to these, and are fairly well dispersed.

"I think it would be prudent to get more definitive diagnostic evidence before attributing it to a different shipwreck."

MONIQUE FORD/STUFF

Rob Wilson of Ghost Fishing came across the wreckage with others on Sunday.

Greater Wellington Regional Council confirmed it had four wrecks listed in Owhiro Bay. Between them they claimed 13 lives.

Sunday, July 15, 2018

Somehow, I missed this story in our local paper, the Dominion Post, or I would have searched out this book much earlier. I already knew that Captain James Cook, very involved with his self-image, and how he appeared to his superiors, was inclined to fudge certain items in his journals.

For instance, he altered the date of Tupaia's death on the voyage of the Endeavour, to make it seem impossible that this Polynesian genius, priest, and star navigator could have died from complications from scurvy. Determined to go down in history as the first captain to circumnavigate the world without losing a single man from scurvy (a feat that Captain Samuel Wallis of the 1766 voyage of the Dolphin had already accomplished), it did not serve his purposes to leave any hint that Tupaia might have suffered mortally from that dreadful disease of the sea.

However, until I found Captain Cook's Discipline, I did not know that Cook also veiled the number of floggings on board his ships, by merely noting that "nothing remarkable" had happened on flogging days.

It took a review by a member of the Captain Cook Society to send me in search of the book. And a worthwhile quest it was indeed. Privately published by its author, Allan Arlidge, it reflects thirty years of searching through logs and journals kept on Cook's three discovery voyages to list and describe the punishments carried out on board and on shore.

Historians have described the eighteenth century as "the flogging century," and pointed out that flogging was carried out so often that it was indeed "nothing remarkable." But is this true? Did some captains discipline more harshly than others?

Let's look at Bligh, for instance. The usual story of the mutiny on the Bounty blames the uprising on the brutal behavior of the captain. And this is what happened during the 18 months between departure from England and the mutiny in the south Pacific.

On
voyage:

Matthew Quintall, 24
lashes, for insolence and contempt

John Williams, 6 lashes, for carelessness while casting the lead

At
Tahiti:

Alexander Smith (John
Adams), 12 lashes for allowing the
cutter’s gudgeon to be stolen while he
was on watch

Matthew Thompson, 12
lashes, for insolence and disobedience

William Muspratt, assistant cook, 12
lashes for neglect of duty

Robert Lamb, butcher, 12
lashes for allowing his cleaver to be stolen

Charles Churchill, 12
lashes x 2 for desertion

William Muspratt, 24
lashes x 2 for desertion

John Millward, 24
lashes x 2 for desertion

That's ten floggings -- a total of 198 lashes -- in 18 months.

According to Mr Arlidge's fascinating account and the listing in an appendix:

On the first Resolution voyage (36 months), there were thirty-two instances of flogging — 546 lashes.

On the second Resolution voyage (36 months), there were forty-nine instances of flogging — 618 lashes.

It is remarkable that instances of discipline increased so drastically each voyage. Many historians believe it is evidence of Cook's poor health and deteriorating temper.

Finally, let's look at Samuel Wallis, the captain who was the first European to discover Tahiti, and who brought his men home scurvy-free on the Dolphin.

On Wallis’s Dolphin, during the discovery voyage (20 months), there were four instances of flogging — one for quarreling, two for
refusing to obey orders, and one for cheating a Tahitian — a total of 48 lashes. There were two
instances of “running the gauntlet,” where the seaman was punished by his own
shipmates -- once for fighting, and the second time for throwing his messmates' dinner overboard -- by making the fellow run between two lines of men wielding "nettles" which were light lines usually used for tying up canvas.

Remarkably, too, Wallis never ordered more than 12 lashes at a time, which was the limit posed by the Admiralty when there was not a courtmartial. Obviously, it was an easy rule to ignore, when the ship was on the other side of the world from England, and there were no other captains to stage a court hearing. But Wallis chose not to ignore it.

There were other extremes, of course. Hugh Pigott of the Hermione , who was notorious for flogging the last man down the mast, logged over a thousand lashes per year. A sadist, and probably a psychopath, he was slaughtered by his own men. A lesser known sadist was Captain Howes Norris of the Fairhaven whaler Sharon, who was chopped up by Pacific Islanders who were terrified of being beaten to death, which had been the fate of Norris's young black steward.

I thoroughly recommend Captain Cook's Discipline as superb piece of research and a readable, and thought-provoking account. You can buy it directly from the author by emailing allansa@xtra.co.nz

Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a very interesting man. Sometime ago, I wrote about his strange belief in fairies. He also sailed on a Greenland whaler, the Hope of Peterhead -- probably not so unusual, as it was common for new graduates from the Edinburgh medical school to pay off their debts and amass some savings that way. However, Doyle fell overboard so unusually often that his shipmates called him "the Great Northern Diver."

Now we find that he learned a system of detection from one of his mentors, one that not only earned him classic status as a mystery writer, but inspired him to solve a crime of his own.

Watching the
detectives

When Arthur Conan
Doyle cried “J’Accuse…!”

In the case of the
“Scottish Dreyfus”, the novelist deployed the acuity of his fictional detective

TOWARDS the end of
the 19th century a patient appeared before a doctor and his students in a
Scottish hospital. The doctor, Joseph Bell, eyes bright above a hawk nose,
addressed him. “You came from Liberton,” he said. “You drive two horses, one
grey, one bay; you are probably employed by a brewery.” To the awe of his
students, the sharp-eyed doctor was right on all counts.

The sharp-eyed
reader will have guessed the identity of one of his acolytes: Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle (pictured left). It is well known that Conan Doyle borrowed Bell’s
deductive genius (and his profile) for his fictional detective, Sherlock
Holmes. Less well known is that Conan Doyle also used Bell’s methods to solve
real-life crimes. One such crime—a murder—is the subject of Margalit Fox’s new
book, “Conan Doyle for the Defence”.

Conan Doyle had
involved himself in miscarriages of justice before, but this one would eclipse
them all. It was so corrupt that it “savoured rather of Russian than of
Scottish jurisprudence”; so anti-Semitic that its wrongly accused victim became
known as a “Scottish Dreyfus”; so embarrassing to national pride that British
writers resorted to not one but two international analogies to convey their
disgust.

The inquiry should
have been simple. On December 21st 1908 Marion Gilchrist, a wealthy spinster,
was bludgeoned to death with a blunt instrument. Shortly afterwards the
Scottish police “solved” the case when they arrested Oscar Slater (pictured
right), a local German Jew. Slater was found guilty and sentenced to hard
labour in His Majesty’s Prison Peterhead.

There he might
have remained, had his plight not been brought to Conan Doyle’s attention, via
a method itself redolent of Victorian melodrama. A pleading note was carried
out of Peterhead, hidden in the dentures of a discharged prisoner. Conan Doyle,
a Victorian dynamo with a walrus moustache and a passion for cricket and fair
play, felt duty-bound to investigate. He set to work, trawling through page
after page of evidence. He was horrified by what he found.

It is a capital
offence, Holmes declared to Watson, to theorise in advance of the facts. Like
Bell, Holmes drew conclusions from evidence as minute as bloodstains, mud on
shoes and the precise sort of ash found at a crime scene—scientific techniques
that, largely thanks to Holmes himself, would eventually become standard
practice in police departments across the world. As Conan Doyle examined the
Slater affair, he realised the Scottish police had theorised not merely in
advance of the facts but in advance of the crime.

The bobbies in
Glasgow had been watching Slater for months. He was no angel but, Ms Fox
argues, he had aroused suspicions mostly because he was foreign. Not merely
foreign, but German, Jewish, a gambler and (perhaps most horrifying of all)
debonair. The police were immediately on their guard.

The deepest stains
identified in the Slater case by Conan Doyle were not of blood, but the darker
tones of anti-Semitism and xenophobia. If this was a Scottish Dreyfus, then
Conan Doyle was its Zola and he cried “J’Accuse…!” with all the might that his
position allowed. On November 14th 1927 Slater was released. The case was over.
But the prejudices it exposed lived on.

Slater never
returned to his family in Germany. That, says Ms Fox, was probably “just as
well”. A few years later the Nazis took power and his two sisters were murdered
at Theresienstadt and Treblinka.

My love affair with Tahiti began in 2001 when husband Bob and I arrived aboard our 36-foot sloop Topaz, having made our way from Hawaii where we lived. Our first view of Tahiti and her island group was the exquisite emerald landscape of Moorea -- roughly the same as shown on the cover of Joan Druett's book, The Discovery of Tahiti. This image remains clear in my mind and stands for the anticipation we felt, the lush beauty, seductive charm and romance the word "Tahiti" provoked in us. Bob and I spent the summer cruising Polynesia while I immersed myself in all the history, art, literature and culture I could discover. In the years that have passed since our Tahiti experience, I've continued to discover Tahiti through reading history, fiction, and through visiting Gauguin exhibits in Paris and London.

Joan Druett's book is an important addition to the history and literature of Tahiti. Like her earlier book, Tupaia; Captain Cook's Polynesian Navigator, The Discovery of Tahiti draws on logbooks, journals, manuscripts and books to frame the story around a notable individual history has largely overlooked. In her earlier work it was Tupaia, the Polynesian navigator Cook employed. In this book, it's the Cornishman, Samuel Wallis. The British Admiralty chose Wallace to command HMS Dolphin on a mission to find a missing continent believed to be somewhere in the largely uncharted South Pacific Ocean.

Druett points out that historians have largely overlooked Wallace and his crew's contribution as the first Europeans to find Tahiti, giving Captain James Cook most of the publicity and credit. Yet Samuel Wallace was here first and, making a great impression on the Tahitian queen, paved the way for Cook's subsequent success. Druett sheds light on the man, the ship, the crew, the voyage, and the aftermath. One of Druett's strengths as a writer of popular history is her ability to gather and cull all the known facts and present them in an immensely readable fashion. Her command of the historical Pacific maritime world is apparent. She brings the account to life with a historian's eye and a seaman's familiarity of pertinent details.

Includes bibliography, illustrations, maps, author's commentary, and a creative essay by the ship's barber, Rogers Richardson.

Monday, July 9, 2018

Wellington City has a visitor who is obviously enjoying the stay, despite torrential rain and gales, because he (or she) is so reluctant to move on.

It seems that he (or she) is an exhibitionist, because the whale plays so happily to the crowd. It also is supremely confident -- on Friday the ferry wasn't able to dock for 30 minutes, as the whale had taken up the berth. But, as the captain remarked, the passengers didn't seem unhappy -- they were too busy with their cameras.

Instead of the barbaric and inappropriate Guy Fawkes firework celebration, we now have our big fireworks show at Maori New Year -- Matariki -- which meant that it would have been staged on Saturday night. But even if the weather had been kind, the show would not have gone ahead, in case it frightened our large guest.

The sex of the whale will not be known until the scientific bods get DNA results from the sample they sneakily took. But, whatever the gender, popular opinion has opted for the whale's name to be "Matariki."

Sunday, July 8, 2018

I picked up an intriguing collection of short stories edited by veteran Ellen Dallow, mainly because (a) I like short stories and (b) anything about the sea intrigues.

So far, it is brilliant. A great story about a whispering skull from Western Australia's 17th century past by Terry Dowling, "The Tryal Attract," which just not have an enticing touch of history, but was eerily reminiscent of the second story in the collection, "Fodder's Jig," one that could easily have been written by a past master of the genre, John Wyndham.

But what drove me to post a sort-of assessment on my blog was a stand-out story by Ray Clueley, "The Whaler's Song."

Delving deep into history, it evokes the Scandinavian link with the sea -- with the whales and the fish that live within it. Fishing happens one season of the year, and whaling the other .... in a primitive wresting of a living from the icy ocean.

We begin with a relatively modern whaling boat -- too small to be called a ship, but murderous nonetheless. There are few in the crew, but they are all driven, by history as well as economics. One of a pair of minke whales is harpooned and butchered, with details that reveal how deeply the writer immersed himself in research. Then, the following night, the whaling boat is sunk. While whale attack isn't mentioned, there is a definite Moby-Dick influence, here. The difference is the author's description of what follows afterward.

Where Melville left the reader to imagine the sequel, and the story of the sinking of the Essex by a whale is followed by the saga of an open boat voyage, the small crew of the whaling boat are cast up on a shore that has been exposed by global warming -- along with the great skeletons of the whales that have been slaughtered in the past.

A compulsive read, with a memorable ending, which I leave you to find out for yourselves.

Wednesday, July 4, 2018

From the New Zealand HeraldShades of Moby! White whale sighted near Gisborne -- and a rare southern right whale is currently cruising Wellington harbour
Story by Ryan Dunlop

A white humpback whale sighted off the coast of the North Island is a significant find, according to whale biologist and expert Dr Ingrid Visser.

It is likely the whale is Migaloo, a famous white humpback found in Australian waters, or the first sighting of a new white whale, both extremely rare finds.

Commercial cray fisher Joshua Whitley was out casting pots about 16km off the coast of Gisborne when he noticed something strange near the boat. "I just happened to look up and see a whale spout. We decided to go over and have a look."

Upon approach Whitley noticed something wasn't quite right with one of the whales - "It was completely white".

Whitley and his crew were "completely buzzing" at the "once in a lifetime" sighting.

"When we left, we thought it was Migaloo, he was right underneath the stern, it was crazy.

"At first, they were pretty spooked, they were cruising at 5 knots. Once they got used to the boat and knew we weren't going to hurt them they came closer."

Visser said just from the footage it was difficult to identify the whale which was probably Migaloo.

However, there was a possibility it was the first documented sighting of the third recorded white humpback whale.

The second recorded white humpback is located in the Atlantic Ocean and Visser was 99 per cent sure it would not be that whale.

It was also possible the whale was the offspring of Migaloo, she said.

The whale in the video was either albino or leucistic, meaning white pigmentation. The difference between the two was albino animals have pink eyes while leucistic animals have black eyes.

"If it was, then it would show he was on a different migration pattern, then it's a real biggy.

"Humpback whales do move between different areas. There are reports of humpbacks moving from the west coast of North America to Japan."

In the next week, the whales would continue north which, if spotted again, could provide another opportunity to identify the animal.

However, Visser stressed observers should follow the law and give the animals more than 50m of space and travel no faster than 5 knots when near them.

Both Migaloo and the white humpback from the Atlantic have identifying features on their tails.

"The Atlantic whale has black on the underside of the tail whereas Migaloo is all white.

Migaloo also has a distinctive dorsal fin, she said.

It was "a very exciting find" for Visser who had gained an interest in white marine mammals after publishing a report of all the black dolphins and whales around New Zealand in 2004.

A white whale, later confirmed to be Migaloo, was spotted in the Cook Strait in 2015. DNA analysis by Oregon State University in the United States confirmed that a skin sample taken from the white whale matched the genetic profile taken from Migaloo off Australia, confirming it is the same whale.

Anyone who sights the latest white whale is asked to report it to the Orca Research Trust on 0800 733 6722.

Marine Mammals Protection Act

* Do not disturb, harass or make loud noises near marine mammals.

* Contact should stop if marine mammals show any signs of becoming disturbed or alarmed.

* Do not feed or throw any rubbish near marine mammals.

* Avoid sudden or repeated changes in speed or direction of any vessel or aircraft near a marine mammal.

*There should be no more than three vessels and/or aircraft within 300m of any marine mammal.

* Ensure that you travel no faster than idle or "no wake" speed within 300m of any marine mammal.

* Approach whales and dolphins from behind and to the side.

* Do not circle them, obstruct their path or cut through any group.

* Keep at least 50m from whales (or 200m from any whale mother and calf or calves).

Wednesday, June 27, 2018

The John Newbery Medal was awarded for the first time on this day in 1922.

Named after the 18th-century British publisher and “father of children’s literature,” the award recognizes the most distinguished American children’s book published the previous year.

Newbery demonstrated that children’s literature could be profitable, but he also used his books to market other business ventures. In “The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes,” a character dies because “Dr. James’s Powder was not to be had.” Fortunately for the concerned reader, Dr. James’s Fever Powder was widely available at the time; fortunately for Newbery, he inherited the patent.

Newbery believed that children learned best through play. Accordingly, his books were designed to instruct even as they amused. For an additional two pence, his first children’s book, “A Little Pretty Pocket-Book,” above, was sold with a black-and-red ball or pincushion. Children could stick a pin into the red side to mark good behavior or the black side to mark when they were bad.

The first Newbery Medal was awarded to “The Story of Mankind,” a history of the world for children by Hendrik Willem van Loon.

Monday, June 25, 2018

For many Britons
Blackwell’s is a high-street name forever associated with studentdom and campus
stores laden with weighty academic tomes. But, like the students who are
currently awaiting exam results, the 139-year-old retailer is keen to graduate
from university with honours.

Earlier this month,
Blackwell’s chief executive David Prescott hosted the famous bookshop’s first
conference aimed at mainstream publishers for more than a decade, a gathering
designed to trumpet a sleeper success story in the Amazon age.

In the Georgian
splendour of the great room at the Royal Society of Arts, Prescott appealed to
executives from publishing houses such as Harper Collins, Penguin Random House,
Hachette and Bloomsbury, to back what is now the UK’s fastest-growing bookseller
with flexible deals and exclusive editions.

“The vast majority of
people still see us first and foremost as an academic bookseller,” says
Prescott. “That’s how we made our name and we are very proud of that, but we
sell a lot more general books than our publishing partners probably realise.”

Now in the final week
of its current financial year, Blackwell’s sales are up 17% as its high-street
and campus stores, coupled with a revamped website, enjoy success shifting less
highbrow reading material ranging from fiction to books on cookery and pop
culture (Prescott, 46, is currently reading Everybody Loves Our Town: An
Oral History of Grunge by Mark Yarn). Against flatlining
demand for academic titles, sales in its campus stores are up 4%.

This resurgence, which
builds on a strong sales performance last year, is good news for Blackwell’s
450 employees. With a turnover set to exceed £50m this financial year, it is
still a minnow compared with Waterstones’s £400m takings but unlike the latter
it will never be sold to a hedge fund.

Owner Toby Blackwell,
whose great-grandfather founded the bookshop in 1879, has pledged to hand
ownership to staff via a John Lewis-style partnership.
But that handover – despite being ensured by a trust set up by the 89 year-old
– is contingent on the business meeting financial milestones that have eluded
it thus far, most recently when its investment in e-textbook platform Blackwell
Learning did not pay off.

“We were getting close
when we made the investment in the academic platform but it wasn’t the market
we thought it was going to be,” said Prescott, who is five years into his
tenure as chief executive.

Based in Oxford,
Blackwell’s has 31 stores, 24 of which are on campuses. Last year it opened its
first shopping centre store in more than a decade, in Westgate Oxford,
the £440m shopping centre that
replaced the city’s rundown 1970s scheme. It has also invested in its website,
which offers a choice of 11m books, where sales surged 200% in 2017.

While Prescott is at
pains to insist the company is not turning its back on academia, he admits
students’ reading habits have changed. “We’re not closing down campus branches.
The higher education business is hugely important to us and always will be.”

However he adds: “When
I started at Blackwell’s in the mid-90s we would sell a lot of recommended
textbooks and reading around the subject, secondary recommendations but
teaching has become increasingly modular. Custom textbooks exist that have the
entirety of that course which has meant we sell a lot less secondary reading
[material].”

Of the £1.6bn of books
sold by UK retailers last year, some £124m were student texts, according to
Nielsen Book Research data. That figure compares well with £114m five years ago,
but does not include the vast sums spent by universities and schools.

The decision to stock
more mainstream titles has gone down well with shoppers: Blackwell’s sales of
general (as opposed to academic) books were up 20% in the first five months of
2018, according to Nielsen, which puts market growth at 1.5%. Within that Blackwell’s
fiction sales were up 19%, food and drink titles up 52% and children’s 25%.

Some 190m books were
sold in Britain in 2017 but Zoe Mills, retail analyst at GlobalData, expects
the market to stand still over the next five years. That calm will mask turmoil
for booksellers because physical shop sales could fall by more than a fifth
while websites grow by a similar magnitude.

“Over the next five
years only the online market for books will be in growth,” says Mills. “The
persistent growth in the physical online books market highlights that, like
vinyl, there is a nostalgia associated with owning physical books.”

The battle with Amazon
has forced high-street booksellers to raise their game with extras like coffee
shops, stationery ranges and star-studded author events. The Broad Street shop
in Oxford, where a subterranean floor stretches beneath neighbouring Trinity
College, is so famous that it features on the itineraries of international
tourists chasing the ghost of Harry Potter around college locations that
doubled as Hogwarts. But Blackwell’s learned reputation means it can seem
intimidating for the average shopper looking for a holiday page-turner.
Prescott says he is trying to shake off that reputation for being aloof.

“We have been on the
wrong side of that line,” he says. “People not going into our Broad Street
store because they think it is not for them. We [in Broad Street] are seen to
be gown more than town and don’t want that to be the case. We have to work to
change that perception.”

When Blackwell’s
accounts are filed at Companies House later this year Prescott expects them to
show a substantial improvement on last year’s pre-tax loss of £3.4m. “It’s our
job to be in a financial position where we take the business from Toby,” he
says. “We’ve been there before with a false dawn so this is not the time to
make promises. This is a time to get our heads down and sell as many books as
is humanly possible.”